Aug 10 2010
Spiraling Southward
Two nautical charts are on the ship’s navigation table. The charts both show these waters have not been surveyed. The captain keeps us on a cautious course using depth soundings. Though he travels the Antarctic frequently, the captain hasn’t ever sailed this channel.
We can hardly see as the snow begins to fall and dusk comes upon us. Huge snowflakes stick to the windows, making it harder to see the icebergs that plug the channel. Luckily, the radar clearly shows each iceberg. We can see large spots of orange, indicating icebergs, on the screen. The monitor shows the channel nearly blocked by one gigantic orange blob. The berg is three kilometers from the ship. You need to visit this site to learn about antarctica travel adventures.
Waiting until the one kilometer mark, the captain whispers his order. The helmsman silently moves the wheel and the ship alters course. A tabular iceberg shows itself through the fog and snow. This is a unique type of berg found only in the southern ocean. The top is extremely flat and wide, and the sides rise straight up. This one is over one hundred feet tall.
Antarctica has amazed me again. Attempting to reach the Antarctic Circle, we have been cruising aboard a polar-class vessel. We hope to reach that imaginary vortex on the bottom of the globe. We’ve passed many inaccessible and empty areas of the world to get here. Though Antarctica was officially found in 1820, no one wintered over on the land until 79 years later. The first explorers searched in vain for the southern pole many dying, scientists soon followed their journeys. Just recently, tourists who were not filthy rich could begin visiting Antarctica. Now, because the price of travel has fallen so much, you can cruise there for about the same amount of money as you could travel in the Caribbean.
You can imagine that Antarctica looks like a manta ray with a curved tail. The manta ray’s tail is separated from South America by 500 miles of ocean. Home to the worst seas on the planet, this space is known as the Drake Passage. ‘The slobbering jaws of hell’, as the waters are also known, extract your true payment for wanting to reach Antarctica. The matronly passenger told us to make sure our gear was well-stowed and our cabin portholes were securely latched before retiring.to bed. Learn about adventure antarctica tours.
After sailing from Ushuaia, in Argentina, we sailed through the Beagle Channel and reached the open ocean. Tempestuous waters were then sailed for two more days. The winds reached near gale-force and were always blowing. As waves crashed on the bow, spray splashed above my fourth deck window. Watching the swells, some said they saw ones from fifteen to forty feet in height. Of course, the swells were much taller to those who suffered greatly from seasickness.
After two days of sailing from South America, we got to the Southern Ocean. The next morning, I woke up to a view of a coastal archipelago. The water was less rough because of the land. Wispy clouds shielded high mountain tops. Sharp ridges poked through the smooth glaciers and stood dark against their relative whiteness.Frozen slab ice entered the water. It was rough and bumpy, cracked and dirty. The mountain range seems like it is tall enough to house a Mt. Everest, and it appears to have suddenly grown straight from the water.
Our Antarctic cruise reminded one passenger of the labor of childbirth. This continent, just like a spoiled child, is the coldest, driest, highest, and windiest of all the continents. The continent may have seventy percent of our fresh water, but its polar plateau gets the same amount of precipitation as Death Valley does annually.No animals stay all year long on Antarctica and there is no indigenous human population. No one even owns the land.
Sailing routes are determined by the weather, as are shore landings. Even though we are warned to be flexible, our first landing comes right on schedule. The groups we’ve been assigned to meet on deck. My group of ten gets into an inflatable boat. We quickly ride across the quarter mile of water. And, with that last step, I become one of the few who can honestly say they’ve been to this seventh continent.
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